The First Few Lives of John Watson with Sherlock Holmes
by CynicAlb
Summary: "[T]here are people, living among us, who do not die. …they are born, and they live, and they die and they live again, the same life, a thousand times." The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - Claire North John Watson is just such a person.
1. Chapter 1

"[T]here are people, living among us, who do not die. …they are born, and they live, and they die and they live again, the same life, a thousand times." The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - Claire North

Prologue

I was dying when I first met Sherlock Holmes, I was suffering a severe infection and blood-loss due to a shrapnel wound to the stomach. I knew I was dying, I was slightly put out by the fact and was looking to con a nurse into giving me some extra morphine to speed my departure. God knows why Sherlock was in Camp Bastion, but he happened to be wandering down my ward and stopped when he saw me.

"You're dying," he said abruptly frowning.

"I know," I said.

"I know you know," said Sherlock, his frown deepening, "But why aren't you a wailing mess like your counterparts?"

"It's only death," I said.

"That's a very rational attitude, oh wait you're not one of those religious people are you?" he asked.

"Not lately," I said with an amused huff, "there isn't a religion that covers me."

"And what are you?" he asked.

"I am just a man with a past, and future that are one in the same," I said.

"I should look at what drugs you're on and get some for myself," he said glancing at my chart.

"Not enough morphine is what I'm on, but if you could snitch me an extra bottle I'd be grateful of the smooth ride into the abyss."

"You're asking me to help you commit suicide," said Sherlock, "you don't even know who I am."

"I know you don't belong here," I said taking a deep breath as a sudden painful wave went through my body, "You're not military, and you're not a doctor. You're too old to be here for me and I'm too young for someone to need information from my past. I'd say you're a diplomat's relative who's wandered off the regular tour."

"You're very astute for a soldier," said Sherlock, "it's a shame you're dying I meet so few interesting people."

"I know what you mean," I said sighing as Sherlock injected something into my IV. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he said, "it won't take long that was purified heroine."

"Interesting indeed," I said, feeling the drug take effect drip by drip, "perhaps we'll meet again in another life."

"I only have one," he said before the world faded and I died without even knowing his name.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One

The next time I met Sherlock Holmes I had been invalided back to London. An unfortunate run-in with a sniper that nearly took my shoulder off and killed me outright. Not for the first time I was considering simply ending my life there, though I was still relatively young.

I had earned my MD and made a name for myself in the RAMC; a reputation that was now worthless with my discharge. My shoulder hurt and the pain had reactivated remembered pain from an injury I had sustained in my fourth life, a bullet wound that shattered my femur and left me with a severe limp for the remainder of that life.

Sherlock Holmes sized me up in one look and completely missed the most interesting thing about me. I am kalachakra or ouroboran, one who lives his life in circles, constantly born to live again.

I am lucky in a sense as an ouroboran to not know my true origins. I was an orphan abandoned on the steps of a church in a tiny town in the south of England. A town so small that the address of the church is simply, The Church on The Street. I don't know who my parents were, I don't know where they came from. Centuries to research, interview and back trace people from the area. As near as I can tell a heavy set woman unknown to anyone in town stopped in the pub, and asked to use the bathroom, no one saw her leave and no one saw her again. I can't even be certain she was pregnant or that she was my mother. When I was found on the church steps that morning, the doctor said I was a healthy full-term baby no more than a month old, but possibly younger.

The priest named me John for John the baptist, and the church office manager gave me the rest of my name, she was Scottish and loved the name Hamish. I should thank her for that one day.

I was fostered to Margret and Harold Jenson they had a three year old daughter named Harry. I am ashamed to say I didn't appreciate their love for what it was. At least not in my first life. In my first life I was a criminal, no that's too kind. In my first life I was a thug; angry at the world, for reasons I couldn't explain today, at the lot I had been dealt.

My foster father expected me to join the military and serve as he had done, but I would have none of it. I ran away to London and fell in with a violent gang. I was stabbed four times before I was thirty and the last time killed me. I was reborn and again placed on the church steps, and when I started to remember my life I thought I was mad. The church thought I was possessed and I was sent away. I lived for a few years trying to understand knowing things that were going to happen and not knowing why or what I was. I killed myself when I was 12 by breaking out one of the panes of stained glass in the rectory.

The Chronos club found me in my third life barely legal drunk and strung out babbling to anyone who would listen about living over and over again. A woman called Charlotte explained what I was and what it meant. I was still too angry to really to take it in. I was grateful to know I wasn't alone in this, but I still felt that I was being dealt a raw deal and I made it my goal to test this unlimited deaths and rebirths theory. I went out and did as many dangerous things as I could think of. In fact it took me five lives to even find a natural death; heart disease in my seventies.

Mary died first, she was my rock, the one who got through the anger and the pain and found me, she found me and saved me. She was the one who gave me the name Watson, it was the name she had chosen for her new life, with a back handed reference to her old one too. Watson means powerful warrior. We were married 47years and to this day I don't know her real name. I don't think she knew I suspected her deceit, but I would never have called her on it, I have my own secrets after all.

When I was born again I didn't have the heart to seek her out. I sought to see my life through calmer eyes, I saw my parents anew, they loved me in a way I had never seen before through the cloud of untamed anger. I was determined to make my adoptive parents proud to make up for being such an utter failure in those first few lives. I joined the army as John Watson and I found that I liked it. The fire that Mary had quelled in me still burned, and learning discipline, fighting, and strategy kept it at bay. I excelled and was chosen for officer school. Somehow it arose that I was a natural leader and I moved up the ranks quickly. When I made captain, my mother cried and my father saluted me. I was killed in Afghanistan when our convoy hit an IED.

Now a couple hundred years older, I was able to focus on living a better life, learning in school became fun and useful. I set my sights on going to college. I visited the local Chronos club and got advice on how to live as one of them, one of us. I studied and got my degree in history. I wanted to understand what I was and what that meant for the world I lived in. I ended up a professor and taught for the remainder of my life learning more about my current events than I had in any of my prior lives. In my next few lives I traveled learning languages and cultures that I had seen through aged eyes as an academic. I found I missed the purpose I found in military service, so I joined up again, this time with a mind to learn medicine. I studied at Bart's before being deployed overseas I toured several bases before finding myself once more in Afghanistan and once more at death's door. Only this time I survived.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two

The furor with which I had approached my rebirths since Mary had calmed somewhat. While the army had helped to give me focus and purpose once more, I now found myself aimless and somewhat bored with what my life had amounted to. Some kalachakra spend many lives learning many disciplines, medicine, religion, philosophy, history, sciences, etc… searching for answers in the realms of infinite human knowledge. I have found that I am a practical man, and spending decades navel gazing was not something I felt I needed to do. Life is life, and for us, life simply goes on and on. I had reached boredom, spending several centuries reliving the same period of history can do that to you.

I thought to end my life after my discharge, I had spent many of my boring monotonous days listing all the professions I wanted to try when I grew up again. I was thinking of trying the law. A law degree would help me rise in rank faster and help avoid combat, and with my already prodigious knowledge base I could perhaps move up to Major, and aim for Colonel in later years. General was a no go, because it came with the power to affect changes that might have ripple effects on the future. So maybe not law, maybe another branch of medicine or an obscure speciality. I could do research into cures for diseases, better treatments or…well the lists went on.

On the day in question I went for a walk trying desperately to convince my body that the pain it felt belonged to a body that had been dead for centuries. I was frustrated and depressed and I really didn't want to run into any old school friends. Stamford was my friend in the sense that he was the one who had been assigned as my lab partner along with two other students and with whom I spent a great deal of time memorizing body parts.

The coffee was overly sweet and the conversation awkward. The only reason I agreed to return to Bart's with him was I literally had nothing else to do. That decision had far reaching consequences even I with all my years could not have predicted.

I was of course aware of Sherlock Holmes, in a way that one might know the name of a random celebrity, but not really know why they're famous. I had heard the name whispered here and there during my time on the streets of London, and in later lives I had read a few bits and pieces in newspapers while I was deployed and at home. Vague references to crime solving, and murders and later a small note that he had been found apparently having committed suicide. I remember when I was working as a thug for a local gang one of the men mentioned the big boss was pissed because he thought Holmes would go the distance. Whatever that meant.

When I was kidnapped by Mycroft Holmes, I knew him as a kalachakra, but he obviously didn't recognize me as one. I had been a skinny strung out 17 year old, and he was a posh twenty-something with nothing but distain for anyone he perceived below him. He just turned his nose up when Charlotte had brought me to the club to dry out. I wouldn't have even noticed him except that Charlotte had said "Don't mind him, Mycroft is still learning that your point of origin is not the be all and end all." You don't come across that many Mycrofts in the world, and even though he was older I still recognized that look of patronizing distaste at my less that salubrious beginnings, and it was swiftly apparent that the intervening lives hadn't changed him as much as they had changed me.

What did surprise me was that Sherlock was his brother, most kalachakra become bored with their families after a few lives, and tend to let them fade into the background after the obligatory childhood period. I maintain special occasion contact with my foster parents, and sister. Harry was born three years before me, and unfortunately didn't have the extra lifetimes to figure out what she was so angry about, she doused her fire with alcohol and made it burn hotter. I've tried through several lives to get her to straighten out, but have found that she cannot or simply will not. As Sherlock correctly surmised I don't go to my family for help.

I shot Jefferson Hope on instinct; a snap decision. That entire night had been the most fun I'd had in decades, perhaps even centuries. Sherlock Holmes was my cure for the utter boredom and indolence that comes from living over again. I wasn't about to let him leave after only a few hours.

A couple of months later Mycroft sent another car for me. I was surprised it took him so long to be honest. Anthea was on her blackberry, I knew her name was really Sandra and we'd dated once in a previous life, but it was a short lived fling and I wasn't about to blow her cover. The car took me to the Chronos club, and I knew that I'd been rumbled. I made my way to one of the sitting rooms at the rear and found Mycroft reading a paper. I took the seat beside him and ordered a drink.

"So did you remember me, or did someone else here tell you?" I asked.

"Charlotte mentioned how far you'd come in just a few lives, when she saw that article in the paper about the jade hair pin."

"Ah," I said smiling as I turned to accept my drink and sit back in my chair. "So, what is it you wanted to speak to me about?"

"I wish to know why you have endeared yourself to my brother, the only linear I have even the most fleeting connection to."

"I thought we had this conversation already, and I wasn't intimated that time either," I said.

"That was before I knew what you were," said Mycroft, "is this some way to get to me?"

"You are still full of yourself Mycroft," I said, "I met Sherlock by chance, at a moment when I was actually thinking on starting over. He distracted me from the sharp turn this life took when that bullet entered my shoulder."

"So that's all he is, a distraction from the repetition?" asked Mycroft.

"We made friends," I said shaking my head, "he's what I needed to move on from my army plans, and he needs the grounding I provide. We work together, and its the first relationship of any kind I've had that I gave a damn about since I died with my wife a century ago."

"If you hurt him I will endeavor to end you existence," said Mycroft. I laughed out loud at that, much to Mycroft's consternation.

"I find it so amusing that you think you can threaten me. I've killed more times than I care to count, but rest assured that scarier men and women than you have tried to intimidate me and failed. Your brother is safe from me, and thanks to me as well. You should be grateful that your brother has connected with someone who cannot be bribed, or threaten with death and who is fully capable of protecting him no matter the cost."

"He already has someone," said Mycroft tightly.

"I'm sorry, Mycroft, but I don't think your brother appreciates your brand of concern. I don't know what all happened while you were growing up, but you might want to rethink your approach for the next life. If it helps I don't get on with my sister, and I don't know any of our kind that's especially close to their parents and other family after several lives piling up."

"I am aware of the convention," said Mycroft, "but I take my familial responsibility seriously in every life."

"For a man like you Sherlock's insistent independence must frustrate you to no end."

"To put it mildly," said Mycroft, "I truly only want what's best for him, and unfortunately have yet to see him find a natural end."

I was surprised, but not really shocked that Sherlock's actions had led to his death on a few occasions, but Mycroft was at least as old as me, to have never found his brother's path to safety? It must tear him apart that this was the fate of someone he cared for and could not avoid meeting again in each life only to lose him.

"I'm sorry," I said knowing it was inadequate.

"I've tried everything, I've hired people to watch him, people to befriend him, blackmailed his cohorts, and people who tried to get close to him. I had his more dangerous foes eliminated before becoming a threat. I even left him to his own devices completely," said Mycroft, "it would appear that no matter the circumstances my brother is not long for this world."

"Has he ever had any real friends?" I asked, "People you didn't pay, or blackmail or scare off?"

"A few passing acquaintances, but nothing close. No romantic entanglement either, I'm not sure he's aware of that side of life except where it relates to his work."

"Barely even then," I said with a small smile.

"I still find myself wondering your intentions towards my brother, Dr. Watson," said Mycroft.

"My intent is only to live Mycroft," I said, "Sherlock gave me a purpose when I was floundering and I haven't found a true connection with another person since my wife. Sex isn't the be all and end all, but honest human connection is hard to come by, at least for me. I'll be Sherlock's friend for as long as he'll tolerate me, and I have no other plans beyond that." My phone buzzed with a text.

New case looks interesting, meet me at Baker st. —SH

"It appears we have reached an impasse," said Mycroft.

"I don't know if it's possible," I said standing up, "but perhaps we could try to find some sort of a civil relationship, I wouldn't suggest you deign to become friends with me, but we both clearly care about Sherlock and that should be enough common ground to be going on with."

"Perhaps," said Mycroft, and with a slight nod he returned to his paper.

* * *

A/N : Ah the world of fanfic has drawn me back in again! A warm flame to crowd around when the real world proves all the colder for its reality. - Cynic


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